LISTINGS; Theater

Steven McElroy

Published: February 17, 2008

Theater

Steven McElroy

When Anton Chekhov's play ''The Seagull'' first opened in St. Petersburg in 1896, it was a disaster. A reviewer dismissed it as ''a boring, drawn-out thing that embitters the listener.'' Chekhov was distraught.
But a couple of years later the Moscow Art Theater successfully remounted the play, and ''Uncle Vanya,'' ''The Three Sisters'' and ''The Cherry Orchard''
soon followed. Chekhov's standing in history was assured.

His prestige is hardly questioned today, so a production of ''THE SEAGULL'' has at least a decent chance of success. Add the Academy Award-winning actressDIANNE WIEST to the cast, as CLASSIC STAGE COMPANY has, and you're really
hedging your bets. In a production directed by Viacheslav Dolgachev, the artistic director of the Moscow New Drama Theater, Ms. Wiest will play Madame Arkadina, the aging-but-fighting-it actress who can barely bring
herself to admit that she has a son because it might reveal her real age. She has one, though: a sensitive poet type named Konstantin (Ryan O'Nan) who is starved for his mother's love and pines for Nina
(Kelli Garner), a young, ambitious actress. But Nina loves Trigorin (Alan Cumming), and Trigorin is enamored of, well, Trigorin. This is a play full of unrequited love and thwarted ambition.

It is all right to laugh at these pining, whining characters, though: Chekhov always insisted the play was a comedy with ''little action and tons of love,'' as he wrote in a letter to his friend and publisher, Alexei Suvorin. Previews
start Wednesday, opens March 13, Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13th Street, East Village, (212) 352-3101, classicstage.org; $70 to $75.

PHOTO: ''Head On'' (2006) includes 99 wolves created by the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, whose solo show opens Friday at the Guggenheim Museum. (PHOTOGRAPH BY HIRO IHARA/COURTESY OF CAI STUDIO)